Bumrungrad International Hospital - Bangkok
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General description
[History] The Bumrungrad opened a 200-bed facility in 1980 and then commissioned the current Bumrungrad International Hospital as replacement facility in 1997. The big break-though in terms of Marketing came in February 2002, when the Bumrungrad became the first hospital in Asia to receive Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation.
[Positioning and size] The Bumrungrad was the first hospital in the medical tourism industry to pioneer the five-star approach - combining a modern hospital with the luxury of a five-star hotel - and was hugely successful with it. While luxury is easily visible, quality has never been a question in recent years, thanks to the coveted JCI accreditation.
The Bumrungrad is managed by an international, US-led management team and derives 54% of it's revenues from international patients. In 2006 the Bumrungrad has treated over a million patients. In 2006 about 418,000 of them were foreigners! To put this in perspective, the Bumrungrad alone has treated more foreign patients than all hospitals in Singapore. Or all hospitals in India. Or more western patients that Singapore and India combined.
The Bumrungrad, with it's 500+ inpatient beds, employs about 700, mostly internationally trained physicians and dentists and about the same number of nurses.
[Ownership structure] Bumrungrad International (BI) is a public company traded on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. The majority shareholders are Bangkok Bank PCL (Thailand’s largest bank) and the Sophonpanich family.
[Accreditation & awards] The Bumrungrad was the first hospital in the world (!) to receive ISO 9001:2000 certification. It was also the first hospital in Asia to be accredited by the Joint Commission International and, last not least, it was the 1st hospital in Thailand to receive Thai Hospital Accreditation. If accreditation is your thing, the Bumrungrad is hard to beat.
Other awards are the Prime Minister's Export Award in 2002 and Asia Money magazine's "Best Small Cap Company" in 2004.
[Reputation & impression] Bangkok's most famous hospital. Fully focused on foreign patients. Professionally managed hospital with higher standards than most hospitals in the West. Most procedures cost only a fraction of what they cost in the West but are expensive by Thai standards. The Bumrungrad is a partner hospital of many medical tourist agents worldwide.
Specialties
[General] The Bumrungrad is a multispecialty hospital with centers for allergies, children, diabetes, dialysis, digestive diseases, ENT, health screening, they have a heart center, an orthopaedics center, a skin center and a center for sleep disorders.
The Bumrungrad also offers packages for a whole range of services, ranging from annual health check-ups to coronary bypass surgery, heart valve replacement surgery and heart transplants.
[Plastic surgery] The Plastic Surgery Center offers not only the big five (breast augmentation, rhinoplasty, liposuction, tummy tucks and face lifts), but every imaginable type of reshaping or reconstructive surgery. The plastic surgery section on their website has a wide range of packages on offer. They also offer hair transplantation procedures.
[Dentistry] During our last visit the Dental Center at the Bumrungrad was not very impressive. Nevertheless the Bumrungrad system ensures that the dentists are well selected and most of them have been trained abroad. Especially if you plan to visit the Bumrungrad for other types of medical treatment, it's probably most convenient to also have your teeth done there. If a dentist is all you're looking for, you might want to have a look at some other places listed on our site..
[LASIK] The Eye Laser Refraction Center does not appear as fine-tuned an operation as some of the specialized LASIK clinics in Bangkok run them. What does speak for the Bumrungrad though is that they also run an Eye Center with 30 trained ophtalmologists. These guys don't only do standard LASIK for super-simple cases, but they treat all sorts of eye problems most LASIK clinics would not touch. As for LASIK itself, the Bumrungrad deserves credit for their free initial consultation - many other places charge for it.
Other related information
List of overseas agents and representative offices of the Bumrungrad International
News clippings
Plenty of news about the Bumrungrad... |
...can be found in the 'news' section of MediThai, which has its own category for stories related to the Bumrungrad International. Some of the stories just mention it in the context of medical tourism in general, others are specifically about this most famous of Thai hospitals. Read more.
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